The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in Biology,
#8751
Piero Carninci
#128143
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Piero Carninci is an Italian geneticist who graduated from the University of Trieste in 1989 and from 1990 to 1995 was an inventor of various DNA sequences and extractions. Later on he moved to Japan where he worked in RIKEN. He became Omics Science Center director in 2008 which was RIKEN division. Currently he specializes CAGE, leads the FANTOM project, and is also a writer of over 200 scientific papers. In 2014, he won the Chen Award of Excellence. In 2016, he became a recipient of the Shimadzu Prize. From 2020 is Head of the Genomics Research Centre, Functional Genomics Programme, of Human ...
Go to Profile#8752
Royston Jefferis
#131752
Overall Influence
#8753
Elly Katunguka
#47004
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Eli Katunguka-Rwakishaya is a Ugandan veterinarian, academic and academic administrator. He is the Vice Chancellor of Kyambogo University, one of Uganda's public universities. He was appointed to that position in February 2014. Prior to that, he served at the Director of Postgraduate studies at Makerere University, the oldest and largest public university in the country.
Go to Profile#8754
Thomas Lecuit
#111968
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Thomas Lecuit, born 4 October 1971 in Saumur, is a French biologist specializing in the emergence of forms or morphogenesis. He is a professor at the Collège de France, holding the Dynamics of Life Chair. He leads a research team at the Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille , and the Turing Centre for Living Systems, an interdisciplinary centre dedicated to the study of living organisms.
Go to Profile#8755
Daryl K. Granner,
#131770
Overall Influence
#8756
Maurice Ptito
#97670
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Maurice Ptito is Professor of Visual Neuroscience at the School of Optometry . He is also an Adjunct Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Guest Professor at the Danish Research Center for Magnetic Resonance . He currently holds the Harland Sanders Research Chair in Vision Science.
Go to Profile#8757
Roy D. Patterson
#131780
Overall Influence
#8758
Orlando Jack Miller
#131785
Overall Influence
#8759
Everett Anderson
#131786
Overall Influence
#8760
Rudolf Nieuwenhuys
#131807
Overall Influence
#8761
Katherine Willis, Baroness Willis of Summertown
#124144
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Katherine Jane Willis, Baroness Willis of Summertown, is a British biologist, academic and life peer, who studies the relationship between long-term ecosystem dynamics and environmental change. She is Professor of Biodiversity in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and an adjunct professor in biology at the University of Bergen. In 2018 she was elected Principal of St Edmund Hall, and took up the position from 1 October. She held the Tasso Leventis Chair of Biodiversity at Oxford and was founding Director, now Associate Director, of the Biodiversity Institute Oxford. Willis was Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 2013 to 2018.
Go to Profile#8762
Pamela Hallock
#128928
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Pamela Hallock Muller is a scientist, oceanographer and professor at the University of South Florida in the College of Marine Science. Overview Hallock Muller's research has focused on reef-associated Foraminifera and algal symbiosis, extending into coral-reef ecology, paleobiology and carbonate sedimentology.
Go to Profile#8763
Josef Poelt
#119734
Overall Influence
1924 - 1995 (71 years)
Josef Poelt was a botanist, bryologist and lichenologist. He held the chair in Systematic Botany and Plant Geography at the Free University of Berlin and then was head of the Botanical Institute and Botanical Garden of Graz University, Austria .
Go to Profile#8764
Mark Harvey
#110981
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Mark Stephen Harvey is a museum scientist and biologist. Since 1989 he has been based at the Western Australian Museum. Career Harvey graduated from Monash University in 1983 with a PhD titled "Contributions to the systematics of the pseudoscorpionida : the genus synsphyronus chamberlin and the family sternophoridae".
Go to Profile#8765
J. Wai-kuoshihandjohn L. Gerin
#131849
Overall Influence
#8766
Lore Steubing
#131852
Overall Influence
1922 - 2012 (90 years)
Lore Steubing was a German botanist, generally an ecologist, born on February 1, 1922. She was former head of Chair of Plant Ecology in the Department of Biology at University of Giessen in Giessen. Steubing died on January 1, 2012, because of a travel accident, in the Augsburg Clinic.
Go to Profile#8767
Nissim Hay
#131856
Overall Influence
#8768
A. P. Bahri And M. E. Mahowald
#131870
Overall Influence
#8769
Paul Brindley
#102201
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Paul J Brindley is an Australian parasitologist, microbiologist, and helminthologist. He is professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at the George Washington University. Education & Career Paul Brindley received a doctorate from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and completed postdoctoral training at the NIAID's Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
Go to Profile#8770
David J. Mayer
#131902
Overall Influence
#8771
Andrea Marzi
#91836
Overall Influence
Andrea Marzi is a German-American virologist. She is chief of the immunobiology and molecular virology unit at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories. Marzi investigates the pathogenesis of filoviruses and vaccine development. She received the in recognition of her research.
Go to Profile#8772
David Leigh Clark
#98333
Overall Influence
David L. Clark is a paleontologist. He was the W.H. Twenhofel Professor of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin. In 1972, he described the conodont genus Neostreptognathodus.
Go to Profile#8773
John Beringer
#120501
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Sir John Evelyn Beringer is a British microbiologist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Bristol. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and the University of East Anglia . He was Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Bristol from 1984 to 2005, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor from 2001 to 2005. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1993 and was knighted in 2000.
Go to Profile#8774
Gerhard J. Herndl
#131931
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
#8775
Sonja A. Rasmussen
#131939
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#8776
Karen Heywood
#111579
Overall Influence
Karen Joy Heywood is a British Antarctic oceanographer and Professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of East Anglia . She is best known for her work developing autonomous measurements of the Southern Ocean.
Go to Profile#8777
Thomas Mcculloch Mack
#131961
Overall Influence
#8778
Henk Spekreijse
#132008
Overall Influence
#8779
Tadatoshi Takayama
#132019
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#8780
Erwin H. Mosbach
#132021
Overall Influence
#8781
Monty Krieger
#132028
Overall Influence
#8782
Gilla Kaplan
#132029
Overall Influence
#8783
Paola Leone
#68502
Overall Influence
Paola Leone is an Italian researcher of Canavan disease, a leukodystrophy. Leone was born and raised in Cagliari, Italy. She received her undergraduate and graduate training in Italy, followed by post-doctoral studies in Montreal and Yale University in New Haven, CT. She holds a doctorate degree in Neuroscience from the University of Padua. Her work on Canavan disease started at Yale, where she collaborated with other early pioneers in gene therapy. She left Yale in 1998 to join the Cell & Gene Therapy Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. She directs The Cell & Gene Therapy ...
Go to Profile#8784
Lilian Hawker
#123459
Overall Influence
1908 - 1991 (83 years)
Lilian Edith Hawker was a British mycologist, known for her work on fungal physiology, particularly spore production. She was an expert on British truffles, and also published in the fields of plant physiology and plant pathology. She was also known for her contributions to education in mycology. Most of her career was spent at the botany department of the Imperial College of Science and Technology and the University of Bristol , where she held the chair in mycology and was dean of the science faculty . She served as president of the British Mycological Society, and was elected an honorary member of that society and of the Mycological Society of America.
Go to Profile#8785
Martin Thiel
#132049
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
#8786
David L. Brautigan
#132054
Overall Influence
#8787
Stefan S. Fajans
#132064
Overall Influence
#8788
Nancy J. Minshew
#132075
Overall Influence
#8789
Murray B. Bornstein
#132077
Overall Influence
#8790
Peter F. Lonsdale
#132086
Overall Influence
#8791
Carolyn M. Mazure
#105522
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Carolyn M. Mazure is an American psychologist and the Norma Weinberg Spungen and Joan Lebson Bildner Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Yale School of Medicine. She created and directs Women’s Health Research at Yale — Yale’s interdisciplinary research center on health and gender.
Go to Profile#8792
Fabrizio Benedetti
#132104
Overall Influence
#8793
Rupert J. Handgretinger
#132125
Overall Influence
#8794
Tundi Spring Agardy
#100696
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Tundi Agardy is a marine conservationist and the founder of Sound Seas – a Washington DC-based group specializing in working at the nexus of marine science and policy in order to safeguard ocean life.
Go to Profile#8795
Craig Heller
#66657
Overall Influence
#8796
Zengjian J. Chen
#126639
Overall Influence
Zengjian Jeffrey Chen is a plant biologist and molecular geneticist, currently the D. J. Sibley Centennial Professor of Plant Molecular Genetics at University of Texas at Austin. Chen received his B.S. at Zhejiang Agricultural University , M.S. at Nanjing Agricultural University, and Ph.D. in Genetics at Texas A&M University. Following a postdoctoral position at University of Minnesota and as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, he joined the faculty at Texas A&M in 1999, where he was promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure. In 2005, he moved to Th...
Go to Profile#8797
H. Roger Lijnen
#132130
Overall Influence
#8798
Philip David Minor
#132166
Overall Influence
#8799
Jeffry Benton Stock
#132169
Overall Influence
#8800
Günter j. Hämmerling
#132180
Overall Influence
